According to the BBC science program Horizon which was presented and conducted by leading weight loss researches and scientists have stated that being overweight might not be all your own fault.

Weight loss experts performed experiments and trials on three different groups of volunteers to try and find out if there is a connection between obesity and hormonal, genetic and psychological factors.

Their, test revealed that not one diet or weight loss plan suits all, what works for one does not necessarily work for another, depending on your biochemistry, your eating habits, your genes and your physiological responses and attitude of mind.

This means there may be underlying reasons for your weight gain and you may need too find out which is the best diet too suit you. The three different types of groups they pinpointed where,

Emotional Eaters-These are the people who eat in response to stress and negative emotions such as anger, anxiety and depression.

The Constant Cravers-They were identified with having a eating behaviour genetics, this gene makes them feel hungry all the time so they are constantly eating and don't know when to stop.

The Feasters-They were shown to produce less of a certain type of gut hormone which interrupted the signal from their stomach to their brain which would normally tell you when you're full.

The emotional eaters were found to use food as a substitute for the more normal and conventional methods of relaxing, emotional eaterswere turning to food every time they had a stressful response or they were experiencing negative emotions.

If you think you are an emotional eater, then you willneed to deal with your anxietyand emotions and find better ways to reduce yourstress,such as the likes of meditation, because meditation has been proven to help you reduce stress and manage your emotions.

Do You Fit Into The Craver Category

The normal digestible behavior and procedure of the body after eating is, when our fat stores have reached a sufficient level during a meal our body will signal to the brain that we are full up and no more food is required at the moment.

But because of a fault with the genes in what is classed as a craver, their genes disrupt the normal full up signal which tricks their brain into thinking and believing that they still need more food.

This left then constantly craving for more food nearly all the time and they would virtually carry on eating or craving for food all day.

To make matters worst the craver's preferred foods that were high in fats and high in sugar, or both.

If you think you are a constant craver, then according to the research you may find it hard to stick to a diet and will power alone will not necessarily be enough for you to lose weight long term.

Because the experiments revealed that the constant cravers struggled to stick to the more conventional diet of seven days a week, every week.

What was recommended to them was, only diet two days a week and don't consume more than 800 calories on your two fasting days. Try to avoid to many high sugar carbohydrates such as bread and pasta, on the other five days it was suggested that you don't have to diet.

This method is believed to encourage your body to burn more fat by helping it to shock and stimulate your body into burning fat.

Because when we consume food the body will convert that food into sugar like glucose which is required for energy reasons and bodily functions.

When you have to much food what you don't need gets stored as fat reserve's. If you fast, after your body has used up all the sugar on those fasting days then the body will have to start to burn off fat to supply you with the required amount of energy, and when you burn off fat you will begin to loose weight.

And although it is fine too have an occasional treat on the days you are not fasting just try and eat good healthy foods most of the time because you don't want to put the weight you have lost back on. If you still find yourself struggling try and focus on all the positive benefits you will gain from looking and being slimmer.

The Feaster

In the group which was labelled the feasters, the scientist discovered that they did not produce enough of the gut hormone that would normally tell them that they were full and they did not need or feel like eating any more food.

So instead of receiving the normal hormone signals which would indicate they were full, the feasters would ignore the normal procedure and they would just carry on eating

The diet that was recommended for the feasters was, a healthy diet that will leave them feeling full for as long as possible. The basis of this diet was foods that took longer to digest which would leave them feeling fuller for longer.

The foods that were recommended were foods that were high in protein, such as

Fish

Chicken And Turkey

Pasta

Lentils And Beans

Foods such as some carbohydrates like potatoes were cut back on because the gut digests them a lot quicker so you won't have that feeling full feeling, because low protein high carb foods tend to get absorbed by the gut quicker.

When you fill yourself up quicker with slow digesting healthy low calorie foods, then you will start to eat less. No one is suggesting that losing weight is going to be easy, during those tough times focus on all the fat you are losing.

The Best Option Is To Lose Weight Slowly And Steadily

Before you consider losing weight it may be worth considering about the excess skin that is sometimes left on people who are very heavy and they have reached a certain age when the skin has lost its elasticity. This means the sooner you start to lose weight the better,

If you only intend to lose a few stone, then normally that won't affect you too much, however if you intend losing a substantial amount of weight, then it may be worth your while to pay a visit to your doctor and discuss first.

Reports suggest that it is far better to shed the pounds slowly rather than doing it too quickly, shedding the pounds slowly is not only better for your health this healthier approach will also help you with the access amounts of skin.

What they fail to tell you with losing weight fast techniques is, because most fad yo yo diets are geared around losing weight too quickly this means you run the risk of damaging your health.

Your body requires a certain amount of calories, nutrients and vitamins each day to promote good functioning of your ograns and muscles, you also need to keep up your energy levels.

Another risk of fad diets is, their diets are hard work, costly and they have a very low success rate. On top of all that most of the initial weight that is lost is put straight back on as the will power and motivation which is needed to sustain theses crash diets soon begins to fade and disappear.

We are not designed to starve ourselves so your mind and body will do it all it can to try and force you to start eating again.

When you go onto a starvation diet you will upset your natural balance as the body is unnaturally thrust into a state of panic and survival mode. You did not put the weight on overnight so the safest and most natural way is for you to lose weight slowly and keep it off.

Set Realistic Weight Loss Targets

Diets are also believed to be responsible for a lot of weight gain, which is exactly the opposite you want for all your efforts, also they don't address the emotional issues associated with obesity.

Another bonus of taking your time and approaching your weight loss with a good solid plan and long term strategy is, you will have a much higher chance of achieving your target.

Why? Because first of all it will take some of the pressure of yourself, you won't feel so dishearten as you would if you set an unreasonable and unachievable targets, this will put you in a better and more positive mindset which in itself will greatly improve your chances of success.

When people set unrealistic goals, when they don't get the instant results they were expecting then it can have an adverse and negative affect, which can transform you back into a negative state of mind, which can cause you to give up and it may even resort you back to comfort eating to help you deal with your emotions.

Losing a sensible amount of weight each week like roughly about two pounds might not seem much, but over a let's say four months that amounts to over two stone.

The big advantage of losing it more slowly is you will have a much higher chance of keeping that weight off as your body adjust to your new sensible way of eating and adopting a healthier way of living by making some simple lifestyle changes.

Plus you will not have to punish yourself by starving yourself and cutting out all your favourite foods as well as not having to endure and waste all your valuable time calorie counting.

When you start to become obsessed in calorie counting it causes you to become more focused on food which can make you feel more hungry.

If starvation diets worked wonders as the claims suggest, then there would only be a need for one diet, why would you need hundreds of different fad diets, if the first one worked then surely that's all you would need.

It's Not About What You Eat But How Many Calories You Consume

Losing weight is not all about eating lots of small portions, this approach of having to prepare six small meals or so a day can be expensive and time consuming and it is very impractical for many people to put into practice.

It's not all about what you eat either, the single biggest factor in weight loss is how many calories you consume each day.

The simple formula is to consume less calories and do more exercise, it is the total amount of calories you consume over a period of time.

Eating too many small meals can leave you feeling hungry, ideally you need a healthy balanced diet where you eat when you feel hungry, but you eat healthy foods.

You can eat bigger portions of food such as skinless chicken breasts or fish, green vegetables, carrots, berries can be filling, and they contain low levels of calories.

You can still eat larger portions which contain lower calories, these older traditional types of meals which we had before the invention of fast food outlets will fill you up and they are more healthy.

The slower and steadier approach to weight loss is far healthier, it will give you a better chance of succeeding and you are far more likely to keep the weight off. Just make it your goal to lose a few pounds a week until you reach your target weight.

Speed Up Your Metabolism

A good natural way to shed the pounds and keep it off is you just need to speed up your metabolism and try and burn off more calories than you consume.

Our metabolism is the countless chemical and physical processes that enable our body to function, it is usually measured by your body's minimum requirements to function efficiently.

To maintain your ideal weight you need to match the right amount of calories you consume to how many calories you burn off, and when you start to gain weight you are consuming more calories than your body needs to function throughout your day.

People sometimes blame their weight gain on having a slow metabolism rate, however, this is fairly rare and weight gain due to a result of medical reason is fairly uncommon and it is believed to be a myth that most overweight people have a slower metabolism.

Men in general have a higher metabolism because they are bigger and have more muscle mass, it is believed our metabolism slows down with age a small degree,

But, this is mainly down to the fact that we become less active and lose muscle mass rather than because we are growing older and if you keep active then you won't put it back on.

To slim naturally and healthy you still need to consume calories when you try cutting back to much on food you become hungry and the hunger will overpower you eventually and you will give in to the urge to eat.You cannot sustain weight loss by starving yourself.

To lose those extra pounds you need to cut back on the amount of carbs you consume for a few weeks until you reach your ideal weight.

Carbs are essential because they are a vital form of energy especially if you engage in doing high active sports or physical work, however to many carbs are not very good for losing that access body fat. You need a normal healthy diet full of proteins, good nutrients, essential fats and vegetables.

The Sugar Versus Fat Argument

There is a lot of debate to which causes us to pile on the pounds more and which is worse for your health, excess sugar in your diet or excess amounts of fat.

First, we will cover the effects of sugar, it is important to regulate your blood sugar levels, and keep an eye on your daily sugar intake.

There is now plenty of evidence that suggest, that too much sugar has been heavily linked to weight gain, whilst the good fats (Not trans fats) that are rich in omega 3 fats, are essential for good brain and body functioning.

Sugar, as been linked with causing inflammation in the body, and inflammation is linked to putting on weight.

Our bodies convert digestible carbohydrates into glucose to produce energy, which is our main source of energy.

There are two forms of carbohydrates, good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates.

Good carbohydrates are an essential nutrient providing minerals and vitamins and good carbohydrates play a vital role in keeping you healthy, energized and looking better,

Our blood sugar levels affect how and when we feel hungry and it also affects our current energy levels.

Also, our blood sugar levels affect whether we burn off fat or whether we store it within our bodies resulting in piling on the pounds.

When we consume to much bad carbohydrates (foods high in sugar) our blood sugar levels can increase and we convert it into glucose to quickly, this creates an insulin surge and the function of insulin is to transport the blood sugar to our cells which is used to maintain our energy levels.

So when our insulin levels rise it indicates to our bodies that we already have plenty of energy available.

Therefore, it should stop burning fat and store it within our bodies, thus resulting in an increase in our weight.

Bad carbohydrates have no nutritional value and try and avoid refined carbohydrates, which are foods such as white bread, foods made from white flour and some cereals.